Field of the Disclosure
Aspects of the disclosure relate generally to wireless communication, and more specifically, but not exclusively, to configuring beamforming.
Description of Related Art
In a typical multiple access wireless communication system, several devices communicate with a base station. In some scenarios, the base station is equipped with multiple transmit antennas and multiple receive antennas. One example is a millimeter wave (mmW) system where multiple antennas are used for beamforming (e.g., in the range of 30 GHz, 60 GHz, etc.). Such a base station may communicate with the devices in a time-division-multiplexing (TDM) or time-division-duplexing (TDD) manner. That is, the base station transmits to a first device in a first time interval and then to a second device subsequently in a second time interval. Often, the beamforming directions to these two devices are distinct. As a result, the base station may change its beamforming setting from the first time interval to the second time interval. The time for changing the beamforming setting is non-zero because of real-world implementation constraints.
FIG. 1 illustrates a communication system 100 where a base station 102 communicates with a first device 104 and a second device 106 via different beamforming directions. During a first time interval 108 shown in a signaling diagram 118, the base station 102 communicates with the first device 104 via a first beamforming direction 110. During a second time interval 112 shown in the signaling diagram 118, the base station 102 communicates with the second device 106 via a second beamforming direction 114. The illustrated gap for changing the beamforming setting 116 constitutes overhead in the communication system 100. Particularly when analog beamforming is employed, it is desired to mitigate this overhead to improve the performance of the communication system 100.